Jazz back to drawing board on slowing Parker, Spurs

For the supposed target of hulking, muscular men intent on inflicting enough physical contact to knock him down, Tony Parker left the AT&T Center on Wednesday looking remarkably unperturbed.

He sported no visible bandages, walked casually with no noticeable limp and generally appeared his usual dapper self. For the second game in a row, he’d run in front of, between and around the Utah Jazz, routinely finding the space to either get to the basket or find an open teammate.

And for the second game in a row, an exasperated Utah player lamented his team’s inability to at least make Parker wince a few times.

“I’m not saying we need to hurt anybody,” Jazz center Al Jefferson said after the Spurs’ 114-83 romp in Game 2 of the teams’ first-round playoff series. “But a hard foul every now and then sure would help.”

That was the same suggestion Utah guard Devin Harris had made after Game 1, but once again the Jazz discovered how difficult it is to foul what they can’t catch. And like all of Utah’s other proposed between-game adjustments — among them, going under ball screens on defense and attacking the Spurs’ frontcourt on offense — it resulted in unmitigated failure.

“We’ve got to learn our lessons from it and scrap it, and then start it over,” Jazz coach Tyrone Corbin said.

“It’s back to the drawing board,” said Utah forward Josh Howard.

The question now is if there’s anything Corbin can draw up between now and Game 3 to avoid what looks like an inevitable, quick demise.

Even with the focus on containing Parker, he still shot 6 for 10 from the field and finished with 18 points and nine assists. The Spurs’ role players they chose to leave open — Kawhi Leonard, Danny Green and Boris Diaw — combined to shoot 16 for 21.

As Tim Duncan pointed out, Utah’s plan to hound Parker was doomed from the start.

“It’s pretty much that nothing new can be thrown at him at this point,” Duncan said. “He’s seen everything, so he’s going to adapt his game on the fly.”

And at the other end of the floor, big men Paul Millsap and Jefferson had a miserable night. Jefferson, who shot 5 for 15 and failed to secure a single offensive rebound, seemed unconvinced the mentality of the franchise he’s played against for years had changed as much as he’d heard.

“They’re the San Antonio Spurs,” Jefferson said. “Regardless of how many points they score now, they’re still known for their defense.”

Jefferson called the Jazz’s performance “embarrassing,” and said he wasn’t sure if the team played as hard as it could have. Millsap said he couldn’t explain the meltdown, saying he’d “never been through something like that.”

Still, the Jazz disputed the idea that they feel too humiliated to bounce back.